Minor-league pitchers are no minor considerations for New York Yankees

MOOSIC, Pa.--They sat in the stands behind home plate Wednesday night, a couple of kids ripping each other and doing Borat impressions. Phil Hughes was charting the pitches in the Scranton-Pawtucket game, because that's what the next night's starter does in the minor leagues. Sitting next to him was his friend Ian Kennedy and throughout the game the people sitting around them were shoved out of the way by star-struck autograph seekers.

See, as much as guys their age belong in the minor leagues, Hughes and Kennedy do not. They have come from and are bound to return to bigger stages -- triple-deck, 50,000-seat stadiums with major-league sluggers staring them down. By Thursday morning, Kennedy was gone, bound for Anaheim where he'll start for the Yankees Friday night. Hughes remained behind, and pitched Thursday night for Scranton, jealous of his Borat-riffing buddy.

"It's been hard," said Hughes, who's been out since April with a rib injury. "You want to be back. You want to be playing. The season gets a day older every time you wake up. But all I can do right now is continue to throw well and prove I'm healthy."

Step 3 in that program went beautifully. After two relief appearances for Class-A Charleston, Hughes took the mound here and flashed a 95-mph fastball throughout the first two innings. He mixed in his killer curve and a cutter, a new 88-mph pitch that has replaced his old 78-80-mph slider. He threw 68 pitches in 4 2/3 innings, allowing one run on three hits, two walks and two strikeouts. When it was over, Yankees minor-league pitching coordinator Nardi Contreras raved and said Hughes would throw 85 pitches in his next start.

Which is the kind of thing that gets a guy thinking about the start after that, and whether it might be in the majors.

"Yeah, 85 pitches, that gives you something to work with," Hughes said. "That feels like it's almost a whole game. So you start thinking, sure."

Don't blame the Yankees if they start thinking along with him. Their big-league rotation in flux due to injuries, the Yankees Thursday night had one eye on this minor-league outpost hard by the Pocono Mountains and another eye on Trenton, where Carl Pavano was working on his final chance to prove useful.

"We're watching it all very closely," Yankees GM Brian Cashman said. "With all we've had going on this year with our pitching, we're keeping a close eye on those guys. But ultimately, they'll either become choices for us or they won't. It's up to them, and how they pitch and how they feel."

Justifiably proud of the pitching depth he's assembled in his organization, Cashman rattled off the names of Alfredo Aceves, Phil Coke, Kennedy and others as pitchers who could become options to help the big-league team before the end of this season. His point seemed to be that just because Hughes was in the major-league rotation to start the season and Pavano is still (believe it or not) working off that four-year, $40 million contract, they're no different from anybody else who has a chance to force himself into the discussion.

But in reality, this start here last night was a big deal. It's one thing if a guy like Aceves can surprise you by racing through the minors and getting a spot start or two in the majors down the stretch. It would be quite another if Hughes, on whom so much importance was placed back in March, could come back and be the one who gives the rotation a jolt.

"As long as there's a game left in the season, you can help in some fashion," Hughes said. "There may not be much of a season left, but there's still a chance to help."

Hughes will start again Tuesday, somewhere. And if that goes well, and a spot opens up, there's a chance he could pitch in the majors five days after that. It's what he's hoping, and in many ways, it has to be what the Yankees are hoping too. Because way back in spring training, the thought was that the Yankees' season could come down to what Phil Hughes was able to give them. And even after everything that's happened since -- the injuries and the disappointments and the stops, starts and streaks ... in the end, it may end up coming down to Phil Hughes after all.